THE COMPANY MISERY LOVES


        “He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties…”
                        —Elizabeth Bishop, “The Manmoth”

    Take it on faith that somebody loves you enough
to leave you, headlights gliding like rice-paper panels
    through the heart of the house, chemical burn
of a mercury vapor lamp drawing some creature

    more fragile than you into its arc, powdery wings,
fringed tarsus stalking toward the mistaken moon.
    Nothing more to be said as you kneel, pin-tucked
flannelled-out, nocturnal triangle of innocence, belief,

and betrayal, the rug’s woolen fibers scratching
    at your ankles, as jeweled shards of stained glass
unfold their veined, synchronous wings of devotion

and grief, a body given up for your salvation,
    as you are left to bear this unbearable kindness.
This is what it looks like. This is how it feels.

Kate Fox's poems have appeared in New Virginia Review, West Branch, Windsor Review, and Green Mountains Review, among others. Her chapbook, The Lazarus Method, was published by Kent State University Press as part of the Wick Poetry Chapbook Series.